Orange have announced they will be handing over their fixed-line
infrastructure to BT who will integrate it into their network. In return,
Orange will piggy back on BT’s national network which will provide a larger
footprint to sell their broadband service from, and help them to provide a
higher quality service. 61 orange staff will also transfer over to BT in the
deal.
Currently, Orange’s LLU network only reaches around 65% of the population,
and they hold in total approximately 840,000 broadband customers. The company
has had trouble keeping people on board, and this is shown by the decline in
customers, down from 977,000 this time last year, although only 44% of this was
LLU. Broadband has been a loss leader for Orange, and declining numbers have
shown it lose £80 million last year on the business. Orange rank fifth in the
broadband market, but continued decline would see it overtaken by rival O2 in
the coming years.
“We are not satisfied with where we stand with broadband, as our customer
base is declining and our performance is poor. But we need to remain in
fixed-line broadband so decided to fundamentally change what we are doing.”Bruno Duarte, (Vice-President of Strategy) Orange
Talking to The Times, Orange blamed ageing infrastructure that needed
an investment boost to get it up to today’s standards. The decision would
perhaps allow the company to invest in marketing of the service, and will put
the company alongside Vodafone who also outsource their fixed-line broadband
service to BT. The deal will probably encourage Orange’s partner company
T-Mobile, following the merger of the two, to launch fixed-line broadband
services based on this platform. With nearly 30 million mobile customers
between them, there is definitely potential to bundle home and mobile services
which will form a successful model.
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Eh?
Looks at bt subforum, yes glowing reports of bt’s service.
Perhaps in comparison to Orange’s service?
The BT Total subforum is very different to the BT Wholesale white label services, that Vodafone, Post Office and others use.
They unbundled 944 exchanges which is quite a few. A bit of gaff of not having kit that is ADSL2+ compatible in the exchange or the back-haul to do it. Doh!
Makes sense for them to bow out now and cut their loses. At least as a pretend ISP they have something to market. I guess the future’s bright selling someone else’s product.
They were still unbundling exchanges just last month.
“Orange blamed ageing infrastructure that needed an investment boost to get it up to today’s standards.”
LOL – they should have partnered with Virgin Media then, not BT 🙂
“LOL – they should have partnered with Virgin Media then, not BT :-)” They wanted to expand their market coverage though, not reduce it 😉
If their complaint is that they can’t supply a decent service because of ageing infrastructure that’s hardly going to improve with BT, the very definition of ancient infrastruture itself 🙂
Now, if Orange had gone into a partnership with VM and helped to put up cash to roll out cable across much more of the country..
Following on from their desperate shotgun marriage they probably had no option (who else would want them?). It’s all (and only) about cutting costs and Orange’s lack of commitment to invest in the UK market.
Well surely this will be the end of oranges 20Mbps, unlimited, sub £10 broadband. Or will it be a change for BT to increase it’s ADSL2+ (21CN) foot print?
as a former orange customer, I know one of the reasons they are losing so many people is that their entire customer service and tech support is in india, staffed by people for whom english is at best a 2nd language, more likely a 3rd…
^
Also there’s providers for ~£5 more which offer full english support, 30 day contract and unmetered usage.
The BT service that they’re already re-selling is absolutely appaling. “Unlimited” usage which in reality means a 5GB FUP. If that’s an indication of the sort of offering they’re going to do, they might as well just give up.
the LLU network had some quite shiny kit (worked on it). was involved in a project to make it do some very shiny new things (which never saw the light day due to marketing/commercial reasons). very peculiar blaming it on needing kit upgrades.
All that has happened is that when this deal was signed Orange knew that they would be screwing their customers over. This has now come to fruition, Orange call this an “Improvement” and will not apologise to its customers. If you are unhappy contact Orange either by telephone or by my favourite by emailing their CEO Tom Alexander ([email protected]) or better yet contact both CISAS and OFCOM asking if it is legal for Orange to do this to its customers.